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Per Phase 1 audit at cowork/docs-overhaul-phase-1-audit-2026-05-04/
and the section-by-section plan in testing-guide-tumor.md.
testing-guide.md was 30% of all docs/ content (8268 lines) but was
integration test code written in markdown, not operator documentation.
The audit's tumor analysis disposed of every Part:
- ~65% DELETE (test cases that already exist in code)
- ~22% MOVE to inline test code
- ~8% KEEP-COMPRESSED into focused operator-runbook docs
- Title + contents + release sign-off ~5% KEEP
This commit ships the KEEP-COMPRESSED dispersal:
docs/contributor/qa-prerequisites.md (NEW, ~120 lines):
From testing-guide.md "Prerequisites" section. Stack boot procedure,
demo data baseline, reference IDs operators reuse across QA docs.
docs/contributor/gui-qa-checklist.md (NEW, ~105 lines):
From testing-guide.md "Part 35: GUI Testing". Manual GUI verification
pass for release sign-off. 25-row table covering every dashboard page.
docs/contributor/release-sign-off.md (NEW, ~130 lines):
From testing-guide.md "Release Sign-Off" section (originally 1009
lines of per-test detail tables). Compressed to a release-day
checklist organized by gate category: code state, automated gates,
manual QA passes, release artefact verification, branch protection,
post-release.
docs/operator/performance-baselines.md (NEW, ~100 lines):
From testing-guide.md "Part 39: Performance Spot Checks". Four
operator-runnable benchmarks (API request handling, inventory list
pagination, scheduler tick, bulk revoke) with baseline numbers and
when-to-re-baseline guidance.
docs/operator/helm-deployment.md (NEW, ~120 lines):
From testing-guide.md "Part 52: Helm Chart Deployment". Operator
runbook for the bundled deploy/helm/certctl/ chart: prereqs,
install, four cert-source patterns, verify, upgrade, troubleshooting.
docs/reference/cli.md (NEW, ~120 lines):
From testing-guide.md "Part 28: CLI Tool". certctl-cli command
reference with command-group breakdown, common workflows
(list/filter, renew, revoke, bulk import, EST enrollment, status),
output formats, CI/CD integration patterns.
docs/README.md navigation index updated to include the 6 new docs:
Reference section gains: cli.md, release-verification.md (was added
in Phase 13)
Operator section gains: helm-deployment.md, performance-baselines.md
Contributor section gains: qa-prerequisites.md, gui-qa-checklist.md,
release-sign-off.md
docs/testing-guide.md deleted. Git history preserves the 8268 lines —
if any specific test case is found missing from inline test code or
the destination docs during future work, lift from `git show
HEAD~1:docs/testing-guide.md`.
Net: docs/ total line count drops by ~7700 lines (28%), from 26,369
to 18,742. testing-guide.md was the single largest doc; pruning it is
the single biggest content-edit win of the entire restructure.
Phase 5 is the last major content phase. Remaining: Phase 4 follow-on
(per-connector page extractions from reference/connectors/index.md),
Phase 15 (WHAT/HOW/WHY remediation), Phase 16 (final acceptance gate).
certctl Documentation
Last reviewed: 2026-05-05
The full docs index, organized by audience. Pick the section that matches what you need to do; each link below opens a focused doc rather than a wall of text.
For the elevator pitch and quickstart commands, see the repo README.md at the root. For the marketing site, see certctl.io.
Getting Started
You're new to certctl, just cloned the repo, or want to understand what it does before installing.
| Doc | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Concepts | TLS certificates explained for beginners — CAs, ACME, EST, private keys, the full glossary |
| Quickstart | Five-minute setup with Docker Compose, dashboard tour, API tour |
| Examples | Five turnkey scenarios — ACME+NGINX, wildcard DNS-01, private CA+Traefik, step-ca+HAProxy, multi-issuer |
| Advanced demo | End-to-end certificate lifecycle with technical depth at each step |
| Why certctl | Positioning vs ACME clients, agent-based SaaS, enterprise platforms; when to look elsewhere |
Reference
You're operating certctl in production or building integrations and need authoritative technical detail.
| Doc | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Architecture | System design, data flow, security model, deployment topologies |
| API | OpenAPI 3.1 spec, integration patterns, client SDK generation |
| CLI | certctl-cli command reference and CI/CD integration patterns |
| MCP server | Model Context Protocol integration for AI assistants |
| Release verification | Cosign / SLSA / SBOM verification procedure |
| Intermediate CA hierarchy | Multi-level CA tree management — RFC 5280 §3.2/§4.2.1.9/§4.2.1.10 enforcement |
| Deployment model | Atomic write, post-deploy verify, rollback semantics across all targets |
| Vendor matrix | Tested vendor versions per target connector |
Connectors
| Doc | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Connector index | Issuer/target/notifier interface contracts, registry, scanners |
| Apache | Apache httpd connector deep dive |
| F5 BIG-IP | F5 connector — proxy agent + transactional iControl REST |
| IIS | Microsoft IIS — local PowerShell + WinRM modes |
| Kubernetes Secrets | Kubernetes Secrets connector |
| NGINX | NGINX connector — deploy contract + quirks |
Protocols
| Doc | What it covers |
|---|---|
| ACME server | Run certctl as an RFC 8555 + RFC 9773 ARI ACME server |
| ACME server threat model | Security posture for the ACME server endpoint |
| SCEP server | RFC 8894 native SCEP server — RA cert config, multi-profile dispatch, must-staple, mTLS sibling route |
| SCEP for Microsoft Intune | Intune-specific deployment guide — NDES replacement playbook |
| EST server | RFC 7030 EST server — 802.1X / Wi-Fi enrollment, IoT bootstrap, channel binding |
| CRL & OCSP | RFC 5280 CRL + RFC 6960 OCSP responder for relying parties |
| Async CA polling | Bounded polling for async-CA issuer connectors |
Operator
You're running certctl in production and need operational guidance.
| Doc | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Security posture | Auth, rate limits, encryption at rest, key rotation |
| Control plane TLS | Self-signed bootstrap, operator-supplied Secret, cert-manager Certificate CR |
| Database TLS | PostgreSQL transport encryption |
| Approval workflow | Two-person integrity gate for high-stakes issuance |
| Helm deployment | Kubernetes installation via the bundled chart |
| Performance baselines | Operator-runnable benchmarks for regression spot checks |
| Legacy clients (TLS 1.2) | Reverse-proxy runbook for embedded EST/SCEP clients on TLS 1.2 |
Runbooks
| Runbook | When |
|---|---|
| Cloud targets | AWS ACM + Azure Key Vault deployment, debugging, rollback |
| Expiry alerts | Per-policy multi-channel routing matrix, severity tiers |
| Disaster recovery | CRL cache, OCSP responder cert, CA private-key rotation, Postgres restore |
Migration
You're moving from another cert-management tool to certctl, or running both in parallel.
| From | Doc |
|---|---|
| Certbot | migration/from-certbot.md |
| acme.sh | migration/from-acmesh.md |
| cert-manager (coexistence, not replacement) | migration/cert-manager-coexistence.md |
| Caddy ACME (point Caddy at certctl) | migration/acme-from-caddy.md |
| cert-manager ACME (point cert-manager at certctl) | migration/acme-from-cert-manager.md |
| Traefik ACME (point Traefik at certctl) | migration/acme-from-traefik.md |
Compliance
You're working through a SOC 2, PCI, or NIST audit and need to map certctl's capabilities to control objectives.
| Doc | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Compliance overview | What these guides cover and what they don't |
| SOC 2 Type II | Trust Service Criteria mapping (CC6, CC7, CC8, A1) |
| PCI-DSS 4.0 | Requirements 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 |
| NIST SP 800-57 | Key management alignment with NIST guidance |
Contributor
You're contributing to certctl, running tests locally, or trying to understand the CI pipeline.
| Doc | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Testing strategy | What we test and why; per-PR fast gates vs daily deep-scan |
| Test environment | Local environment with real CAs (Pebble, step-ca, etc.) |
| QA prerequisites | Before running QA: stack boot, demo data baseline, env vars |
| QA test suite | qa_test.go reference for release QA |
| GUI QA checklist | Manual GUI verification pass for release |
| Release sign-off | Release-day checklist — code state, automated gates, manual QA, artefact verification |
| CI pipeline | CI shape, regression guards, adding new checks |
Archive
Historical docs preserved for reference. Most operators don't need these.
| Doc | Why archived |
|---|---|
| Upgrade to TLS (v2.2) | Pre-v2.2 HTTPS-everywhere upgrade procedure |
| Upgrade past v2 JWT removal | G-1 milestone JWT auth removal procedure |
Reading order by role
First-time operator: Concepts → Quickstart → Examples. About 90 minutes end to end.
Production operator: Architecture → Security posture → Control plane TLS → Disaster recovery runbook. About 4 hours end to end.
PKI engineer: ACME server → SCEP server → EST server → Intermediate CA hierarchy. About 6 hours end to end.
Auditor / compliance team: Compliance overview → applicable framework doc → Disaster recovery runbook → Approval workflow → ACME server threat model. About 4 hours end to end.
Contributor: Architecture → Testing strategy → Test environment → CI pipeline. About 3 hours end to end.